


Khaleesi

by SilverShortyyy



Series: The Last Requiem [6]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mourning, Post-Battle of Winterfell, Season/Series 08, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 15:35:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18694333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverShortyyy/pseuds/SilverShortyyy
Summary: Post-Battle of WinterfellWhen Daenerys had lost Khal Drogo, it seemed to her that she would never feel heartbreak as painful as that. But then there was Ser Jorah Mormont, who had loved her so fully that she couldn’t believe that was possible, who would give his life for her if need be.When Daenerys lost Ser Jorah, she could not quite grasp how it happened at all.





	Khaleesi

“Khaleesi, why are you crying?”

She’s about to say that she isn’t when her fingers touch the tracks on her cheeks, drawn straight down and still damp, still wet.

“I— Ser Jorah, I don’t—“

The sob bubbles out of her chest without preamble. She’s confused, so confused—why is she crying, who is she crying for? There seems to be an emptiness in her chest, growing now that she’s noticed it. Something, some _one_ is missing. It’s like Viserion being shot out of the sky all over again.

“Shh,” Jorah walks the two steps over to her, pulls her to his chest as the sobs wrack through her, as the cries become uncontrollable. “It’s alright, Khaleesi. You’ll be alright.”

“Ser Jorah, why am I—“ Daenerys curls her fists into the cloth covering Jorah’s chest. “Why am I crying? I don’t—“ She buries herself into his chest. He smells like mud, blood and mud, and something else, something entirely only Ser Jorah Mormont. “I don’t understand.”

His lips purse into a line. She looks up at him, and he seems hesitant, seems unwilling to speak the words into the silence.

He strokes her hair, once, twice.

“I’m leaving you, Khaleesi.”

She blinks.

“Then you can just come back to me. You’ve kept coming back to me, even when I told you not to—“

He shakes his head. His eyes, always so full of love, are now full of sorrow. He pulls her close to him, and she allows it, allows him because she doesn’t think she can take this, doesn’t think she can keep herself from falling apart.

But he’s lying, so she’ll be fine, right?

“This is different, Khaleesi.”

She shakes her head. “No.” Impossible. No, he’s lying. “No.” She’s pounding her fists into his chest, and she feels his hand cradle the back of her head. “No!”

“I’m sorry, Khaleesi.”

“No! Don’t—“ She can’t look at him, can’t let the truth settle back in. “Don’t leave me, Ser Jorah! I haven’t—“ She tries to calm her breathing. The hiccups and the shock don’t leave, and the tears keep streaming down. “I need _you_ to be there when I retake the Iron Throne.”

When she looks up at him, hoping her gaze is commanding, his eyes are soft, sad and loving, so like the eyes she had gotten used to seeing when she turned around, the eyes that never could look away from her.

He had always loved her. Somehow, she had always known.

“I will always be with you, Khaleesi.” He cradles her face in his hands, swipes away some of her tears with his thumbs. “I will always be right beside you, don’t you forget that.” He scans her eyes, and she sniffles. No. No, no, no. “I love you, Daenerys. I always will.”

She closes her eyes. His hands are warm against her cheeks, but already the warmth is beginning to fade away.

She covers his hand with her own, and leans into his touch.

“Then don’t leave me.”

He slides his hand out from under hers, and pulls her hand over to him. He kisses the center of her palm, and his eyes shine with promise, shine with tears, shine with pride and love.

“I never will, Khaleesi.” He puts her hand on his chest, just right over his heart. It still beats, and Daenerys will never forget its sound, how it feels beneath her fingers. “I’ll be right there with you.”

Maybe, Daenerys thinks, in another life, she’d love him back. Completely, the way he has always loved her.

“Ser Jorah—“ And he smiles at her like she is the dawn, and she wonders if she’ll ever find anyone else who does, anyone else who will love her like this, who could follow her to the ends of the earth as Ser Jorah always has.

She closes her eyes and inhales him again, remembering how it feels to have his heart beat underneath her hand, remembering how it feels for him to hold her, for him to be right there.

* * *

When Daenerys wakes up, Drogon is around her, and Jorah’s body is beneath her.

The sobs return at once.

He looks so peaceful like this, looks as if he did not die in another battle, in another fight. When she strokes his cheek, she half expects him to wake up— ‘I will never leave you, Khaleesi’ ‘I just had to sleep for a little while’. But his blood is sticky on her thighs and his cheek is cold under her touch.

She wishes she could have been stronger, could have been quicker, could have been better. That way he wouldn’t have had to push her behind him as he took the blow and _then_ hacked off that wight. That way, he would still be alive.

 _“It is not your fault, Khaleesi.”_ He would definitely say. _“Let me serve you then while you are still not stronger.”_

Should she have told him not to do what he did, not to die for her like he did?

She holds him closer, holds him close to herself as if it could will some of her life into him.

The last traces of his scent grow weak beneath her nose, and she inhales him, hoping to make it a mark on her mind, how he smells, how he feels like, the way he looks at her with his eyes, the way he stands in front of her, shoulders square and head up.

Jorah. Jorah. Jorah.

She will never forget his name. Never.

Jorah.

There is a faint sound of shouting, and then an echo of Drogon’s roar.

“Dany!” It’s Jon. Or should she call him Aegon? “Dany, are you alright?”

 _Yes_ , she could say. It would be a lie, and he might not even believe it. So she doesn’t answer him, just hushes Drogon with a stroke of her fingers, and lets Jon take her back to Winterfell. But she doesn’t let him take Jorah away from her, never, because no one can pry Jorah away from her, no one.

Daenerys thinks she has never seen Tyrion look so... Sad for her.

“Your Grace,” he says, and she notes that he sits beside Sansa. “I’m sorry.”

Tyrion had been wed with Sansa once, Daenerys thinks she had been told, but the marriage had never been consummated, so it did not really count.

Daenerys witnesses more looks like Tyrion’s as she goes through Winterfell, up to her chambers, where Jorah is set down onto her bed, where Jon Snow leaves her alone with her dead.

 _Her dead_. Jorah isn’t dead.

 _But he is_. And the sooner she accepts that, the better.

_“I will always be with you, Khaleesi.”_

She wonders if he’ll hate her if she holds it against him from the other side of the grave, how he can’t keep his promise to be with her when she sits on the Iron Throne.

Except his promise was to serve her, always, and serve her he had, till his last breath.

She cleans him up, carefully, but only enough without peeling his clothing off. When she’s done with him, he looks just like he’s sleeping. She smiles, cradles his cheek in her palm.

“You’ve served me well, Ser Jorah.” She sniffles, but she smiles. “Thank you. For everything.”

He’s burned with the rest of them, but to her, he has a special place, one she will never forget, one she will unceasingly remember.

She doesn’t continue seeing Jon for a while. She doesn’t quite bother with too much conversations, just what was necessary.

Until.

“Tyrion tells me Ser Jorah loved you.” It is Sansa, of all people, who catches her when Daenerys is alone at one of the highest towers of Winterfell.

“Should I tell Tyrion to keep you from interrupting me or can you understand that yourself?”

‘ _Loves,_ ’ Daenerys almost says. ‘ _Ser Jorah loves me._ ’

His love would never die, not even at the grave.

“He’s worried about you, you know.” Sansa says. “Tyrion.”

“Then why can’t he tell me that himself?” But Daenerys knows quite well why without Sansa answering her.

“He doesn’t quite... Know how to approach you, I think.” Daenerys looks at Sansa as if to ask her how she knows this, especially since it sounded like Tyrion didn’t tell even Sansa why that was the case. “He was always less tactful when it particularly came to women and their emotions.”

Daenerys nods, and faces the horizon.

“Ser Jorah did love me.” Daenerys says, and she doesn’t know why she’s telling Sansa Stark this, of all people. “He loved me very much.”

“And did you?” Sansa doesn’t dare step too close, and Daenerys is thankful. “Love him?”

“I did, in my own way.” It takes a deep breath for Daenerys not to succumb to tears. That’s how everything seemed these days; everything reminds her of Ser Jorah, and every time, she needs to keep herself from being reduced to tears. “I couldn’t love him like he loved me, but it didn’t quite matter to him that I couldn’t.

“He simply loved me anyway.”

Sansa doesn’t speak. The winter sun shines, but the clouds never quite disappear.

“It’s quite rare, Lady Sansa.” Daenerys finally turns around, faces Sansa Stark. “To find a man who could love like that. Asking for nothing at all, even having denied his own feelings while everyone around him had told him otherwise.”

“Tyrion mentioned something like that.”

“I remember Ser Jorah saying ‘Tyrion was right’ before he first told me he loved me.” Daenerys can’t bring herself to say it while looking at the Lady Stark, so she looks away. “And Tyrion was right.”

The sound of clacking heels brings Daenerys to look at Sansa, who walks to another window, and looks out.

“So what will you do now?” The sun’s rays portray gracefully on the Lady Stark’s hair, turning the strands into flames. “What now that he’s gone?”

“I supposed I’ll have to carry on.” Daenerys turns back to her own window, to her own view of Winterfell. “He’ll always be with me for as long as I don’t forget him.”

The winter sun shines despite the cold clouds shrouding around it, and Daenerys wonders if that winter sun is her, or if it’s Ser Jorah, keeping her from losing her way.

She lets one tear caress her cheek before swiping it away.


End file.
